Texting while driving continues to be a significant cause of traffic accidents, despite campaigns to prevent it. The people most at risk appear to be young adults both because they are most proficient at texting and are among the least proficient drivers.
While preventing or deterring a driver of a vehicle from texting or using other distracting features of a mobile phone, it is also an objective not to prevent passengers from texting or using the other features of the phone.
Description of the related art:
The relevant prior art includes:
US Patent Application 20120244840 issued to R. Vander Veen et al. on Sep. 27, 2012 entitled “Motion-Based Disabling of Messaging on a Wireless Communications Device” that describes a system in which if a wireless communications device is traveling a speed exceeding a first predetermined threshold but less than a second predetermined threshold, the device is presumed traveling in a motor vehicle. In order to inhibit operation of the wireless communication device when traveling, access to certain device functions or applications such as e-mail, text messaging, etc. are limited by requiring the user of the device to respond correctly to a randomly generated visual challenge, such as, for example, a CAPTCHA (in which a user is prompted to recognize the characters in a visually distorted string of text). This visual challenge presents a sufficient obstacle that the user will be less likely to use the wireless communications device for e-mailing or texting while operating a motor vehicle.
US Patent Application 20100297929 issued to S. Harris on Nov. 25, 2010 entitled “Prevention against Texting and other Keyboard Operations While Driving” that describes a method of prevention against some, but not all, users in a vehicle using the keyboard on a device while driving. This can prevent the driver texting while driving, or can prevent the driver entering the destination on a GPS while driving.
US Patent Application 20040209594 issued to M. Naboulsi on Oct. 21, 2004 entitled “Safety control system for vehicle” that describes a safety control system for vehicles that includes a communication device having at least one input accessible from within the vehicle and an output communicated within the vehicle, at least one sensor operable to sense at least one condition related to vehicle operation, and a controller communicated with the sensor and the communication device to selectively suppress at least one of said input and said output in response to a sensed parameter of said at least one condition being outside of a threshold. When an input is suppressed, the driver is prevented from accessing or inputting information into the communication device. When an output is suppressed, communication between the device and the driver of a vehicle is suppressed to, among other things, avoid distracting the driver during certain driving situations or conditions relating to the driver, vehicle and/or environment.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,771,946 issued to Oyaski on Aug. 3, 2004 entitled “Method of preventing cell phone use while vehicle is in motion” that describes a method for preventing a driver of a motor vehicle from using a cellular telephone while the motor vehicle is in motion. The invention comprises a step of determining a position of the gear shift lever in such motor vehicle and generating a first signal when the position of such gear shift lever is moved to and remains in one of drive, overdrive, second, low, and reverse. Another step involves transmitting such signal generated in a previous step to a means disposed in a predetermined location on such motor vehicle for generating a reverse phase signal. Another step involves generating such reverse phase signal when such first signal is received by such means. A next step is transmitting such reverse phase signal for a predetermined radius from such predetermined location. A last step is preventing any cellular telephone transmission within such predetermined radius when such reversed phase frequency signal is being transmitted.
Various implements are known in the art, but fail to address all of the problems solved by the invention described herein. Embodiments of this invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and will be described in more detail herein below.